


How Not To Kiss Your Lister In A Crisis

by Pink_Tinted_Monocle



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25221532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_Tinted_Monocle/pseuds/Pink_Tinted_Monocle
Summary: When Lister and Rimmer find themselves locked in a cell on-board a simulant death ship, Lister’s claustrophobia kicks in.  Rimmer attempts to distract him with a kiss.  Lister has some notes.
Relationships: Dave Lister/Arnold Rimmer
Comments: 27
Kudos: 66





	How Not To Kiss Your Lister In A Crisis

“I demand you unhand us right now, miladdo!” Rimmer screeched as the simulant dragged him and Lister down the corridor. Their captor simply leered evilly at the hologram and continued to pull at the chains attached to the painfully tight handcuffs clamped around Rimmer and Lister’s wrists.

“We are employees of the Jupiter Mining Corporation, you can’t treat us like this! If you don’t let us go I’ll send a strongly worded letter to your superior officer reporting you for gross misconduct!”

Lister rolled his eyes and then winced as the simulant gave another tug on the chain, causing him to stumble forward. “Give it a rest, Rimmer, there’s no reasoning with it. I doubt it even speaks English.”

“Perhaps it speaks Esperanto”, said Rimmer. The hologram cleared his throat and spoke loudly and slowly. “Vi odoras kiel krokodilo.” He turned his head to address Lister. “There. I’ve just politely asked him to release us from these shackles.”

Lister groaned. “No, Rimmer. You just told him he smells like a crocodile. Anyway, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t speak English or Esperanto or any other language known to man. Look, just be quiet for a minute will you? I’m trying to think of a plan to get us out of here.”

Before Rimmer could reply the simulant came to an abrupt stop. It spun a wheel handle on a heavy looking door and shoved Lister and Rimmer inside, chucking the chains in after them. It then sealed the door behind them and thudded off back down the corridor.

Rimmer glared at Lister. “How’s that escape plan coming along, Listy?”

Lister pulled a face. “I’m working on it, man. I’m working on it!”

Rimmer’s eyes flicked upwards. “Any chance you could hurry up a bit? I believe we got a deadline.”

It was then that Lister noticed the countdown clocks mounted near the ceiling on all four walls of the cell. A large red digital display had already started counting backwards from _05.00_. As Lister watched, the display flashed _04.56_. Then _04.55_. Then _04.54_.

Lister gulped. “What’s it counting down to, do you reckon?”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s something just lovely!” Rimmer replied, his voice strained. “Maybe they’re going to treat us to a full roast dinner with all the trimmings and crumble for desert. Or perhaps this room is a sauna and soon it’ll be filled with steam and afterwards we’ll have a Swedish massage. Or possibly we’ll be blasted with some kind of radiation that’ll give us superpowers and bigger penises! Or maybe, just maybe, and bear with me on this one as I know it’s a bit of a stretch, just maybe they are going to SMEGGING KILL US!”. Rimmer screamed the last three words before throwing himself against the door. “Let us out! I’m sorry I said you smell like a crocodile! I didn’t mean it, you smell lovely! Like freshly starched boxer shorts and camphor wood and well-worn leather! All of the best smells!”

“It’s not there, Rimmer!” said Lister, exasperated. He tried to place a reassuring hand on Rimmer’s shoulder but both his hands were bound in front of him in the heavy chains and he could barely raise them. “Look, just try and calm down OK? We’ll figure something out, just like we always do.”

“But what if we don’t?” wailed Rimmer. “What if there’s no way out?”

“There has to be” Lister reassured him. “There always is.”

But as Lister tried to assess their surroundings and come up with an escape plan, the words ‘no way out’ echoed in his mind and he felt his chest start to tighten. Around him in the small cell the walls seemed to constrict and Lister’s breath started to quicken.

“What is it?” Rimmer barked. “What’s the matter with you?”

Lister closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing. “The walls – the walls are closing in…”

“Are they?” yelled Rimmer. 

Lister heard him shuffling rapidly around as if he was trying to see all four walls at once.

“Not literally, you goit!” Lister managed to say between breaths. “It’s my claustrophobia!”

“Oh!” said Rimmer, sounding somewhat relived. 

Lister opened his eyes and scowled at Rimmer. “It’s alright for you, you’re not the one in the middle of a full blown panic attack!” he puffed.

Rimmer looked slightly guilty. “Well, is there anything I can do?”

“Distract me”, Lister panted.

“How?”

“I don’t know, just do the first thing that comes to mind!”

Rimmer tried to wring his hands, although it was made somewhat difficult by the cuffs. “Nothing’s coming to mind!”

“Just do anything!” Lister heaved, feeling as if he was about to pass out. “Anything at all!”

Lister didn’t know what he had been expecting. Maybe he had expected Rimmer to slap him, or start recalling a particularly exciting game of Risk he had played or to whip out a portable slide projector and start showing Lister several hundred photographs from his latest holiday in the diesel decks. But the one thing Lister did not think would happen is that Rimmer would kiss him, which is why it came as such a surprise when Rimmer did exactly that.

**********************************************************************************

It had been a strange day, even by Lister’s standards. The crew of Red Dwarf had thought their luck was in when they’d detected the derelict luxury cruise ship, and as they had got into Starbug and made their way over Lister had imagined all of the treasures they might find. Perhaps they would have Michelin star worthy vindaloo’s, perfectly preserved for millions of years, or new games for the AR suite or even a guitar with more than five strings.

The others were equally excited to find out what goodies awaited so all four of them had boarded the ship. They’d taken the usual precautions, with Lister, Cat and Rimmer all armed with bazookoids while Kryten scanned for life forms. The ship was huge, but thankfully someone had drawn helpful red arrows on the floor which the boys from the Dwarf followed without question. It wasn’t until Kryten had casually mentioned that a mechanoid who had been programmed to be a little more suspicious might think that the arrows were leading them into a trap that Lister had realised they were in deep smeg. But before they could turn back something had bonked Lister on the head and he’d blacked out. He had come to sometime later to find the burly simulant guard handcuffing him and Rimmer before dragging them down a corridor.

And then had come the room with the countdown clocks and the claustrophobia and then, _then_ , Rimmer had kissed him. Or at least tried to kiss him. The hologram’s lips were pursed and glued painfully tightly to Lister’s mouth without moving, so in fact it felt less like a kiss and more like an octopus had wrapped a tentacle around Lister’s head and was attempting to suffocate him with its suckers.

After several seconds Rimmer pulled back. He cleared his throat loudly and then fixed his gaze upwards as if fascinated by a particular spot on the ceiling.

“There”, Rimmer said brusquely. “Are you sufficiently distracted?”

Lister just gaped at Rimmer, his jaw open so wide that Lister half expected his chin to hit the floor like in the old cartoons he and the Cat liked to watch. After a few moments he regained the power of speech.

“That”, said Lister, “Was the worse smegging kiss I have _ever_ had.”

Rimmer ceased his inspection of the ceiling and looked down at Lister in alarm. “Excuse me?”

“It was smegging _awful_ , Rimmer!” Lister exclaimed. “It felt as if you were trying to render me unconscious using only your lips.”

“I was just trying to distract you!” Rimmer snapped back. “I just did the first thing that came to mind, which is what _you_ asked me to do!”

Lister cocked his head to one side. “And the first thing that came into your mind was to kiss me, was it?”

“Well, I-I had – I mean – look, my options are somewhat limited in this small space, okay?” Rimmer stuttered. “I could hardly have performed a Morris dance in here. There isn’t enough room to get my knees up properly and I don’t have any bells or ribbons on me.”

Lister shrugged. “Yeah, but you could have at least tried to make it a good snog, man.”

Rimmer looked perplexed. “Why?”

“Why not?” asked Lister. “I mean, why kiss someone badly when you could do it well? Unless, of course, you don’t know how to kiss properly…”

“I know how to kiss, Listy!” Rimmer protested indignantly. “I’ll have you know that I’m an excellent kisser when I want to be!”

“Oh yeah?” taunted Lister.

“Yes!” Rimmer shouted back.

“Prove it then!” Lister yelled.

“I will!” Rimmer screamed, before lunging forwards and once more covering Lister’s lips with his own.

This time it was different. Rimmer’s lips moved against Lister’s, softly at first before becoming more insistent. Lister opened his mouth to deepen the kiss and his tongue met Rimmer’s, sending a shiver of excitement down Lister’s spine. It was a little strange, kissing a hologram, but not unpleasant. Lister’s tongue tingled pleasingly from the low level hum of electricity that ran through Rimmer’s body. He was just thinking how he would like to tangle his fingers in Rimmer’s hair had his hands not been in chains when Rimmer used his body to push Lister back against the wall. Rimmer’s bound hands found Lister’s and they stayed like that for a few moments, pressed up against each other while kissing and holding hands.

Eventually, Rimmer pulled back. “Well?” he asked expectantly. “Was that good enough for you?”

“I mean, it was better than before”, said Lister. “But there is still some room for improvement.”

“Room for improvement?” Rimmer repeated, mimicking Lister’s accent. “That was a damn good kiss and you know it!”

“It was alright”, said Lister. “But you could definitely work on making the experience a bit more pleasurable.”

“How?” Rimmer demanded. “How would I improve my kissing, in your opinion?”

Lister opened his mouth to answer, but before he could say a word a loud beeping noise filled the room.

“What’s that?!” Rimmer shouted, his hands clasping Lister’s again although this time in panic rather than passion.

Lister looked up at the countdown clocks and swallowed nervously. “I think we’ve reached our last minute.”

“Marvellous!” replied Rimmer sarcastically. “And do you have a plan for how we’re going to get out of here yet?”

“Er, no”, Lister admitted. “To be honest, I was a bit distracted by your decision to shove your tongue down my throat.”

“You asked me to distract you!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t realise you were going to do it with your lips!”

They glowered at each other for a second before Rimmer’s shoulders slumped and his face crumpled. “So that’s it then. We’re destined to meet our maker in some particularly nasty manner on a simulant death ship where the crew don’t even speak Esperanto.”

“Not necessarily!” protested Lister. “Kryten and Cat might have escaped and be on their way to break us out of here!”

Rimmer laughed humourlessly. “What, a last minute rescue from crash test dummy head and that feline imbecile? We’ve got more chance of spontaneously turning into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias.”

Lister shook his head in frustration. “Hey, don’t be so negative man, you never know!”

There was another loud beep.

“Last twenty seconds”, Lister said quietly. He looked at Rimmer. “You know, if you wanted to practice kissing again I would be, like, willing to help.”

Rimmer stared at Lister in disbelief. “What, now?”

Lister arched an eyebrow. “Do you have anything better to do? I mean, do you really want to die for the second time knowing that you still weren’t a very good kisser?”

Rimmer scowled, and Lister was just thinking that he’d misjudged the situation and Rimmer was actually going to hit him when the hologram’s lips met his for the third time. 

It was Lister who pushed Rimmer against the wall this time, trying to cram as much sensation as possible into what would more than likely be his final few moments of life. As the countdown clocks hit the last five seconds the kiss intensified, becoming wilder and more desperate.

 _Oh well,_ thought Lister as the timer hit zero and Rimmer did something with his tongue that made Lister feel weak at the knees. _I suppose there are worse ways to go._


End file.
